


Stupid, Reckless, Broken

by TheSoulOfAStrawberry



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, Help Eren Jaeger 2k14, Hurt No Comfort, If you're into that kind of thing, Most ships if you squint, One Shot, POV Jean Kirstein, Post-Chapter 062, all angst, no seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-14
Updated: 2014-10-14
Packaged: 2018-02-21 02:49:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2451893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSoulOfAStrawberry/pseuds/TheSoulOfAStrawberry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean could think of many occasions upon which he would have gladly split Eren in two, but when someone really does split Eren- no, shatters him, into a thousand tiny pieces- Jean finds himself wondering how he ever managed to convince himself Eren's spirit was a bad thing.</p><p>Or, in which Jean realises what he thought were the stars are now only shards of glass in the gutter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stupid, Reckless, Broken

Somewhere along the shaky lines of time, Jean Kirstein had accepted that the world, as it was, would undoubtedly provide him with many things he would wish he hadn’t experienced. It could have been when he decided to join the Survey Corps, or even when Marco left him, but thinking about it, the revelation was more likely a recent one. After all, fifteen was too young to be sure about anything. Sixteen wasn’t either, but he wasn’t sixteen, even if that was what his birth certificate said: he didn’t think the average sixteen-year-old had seen what he’d seen.

What annoyed him so much about Eren was that he hadn’t accepted anything. Hell, the boy couldn’t spell, so he’d not even managed to determine whether his own surname was written with a “J” or a “Y”. Anything and everything was a battle, a struggle against the current: it was exhausting. For every scream of bloodlust, every blind patriotic slogan, every regrown limb, every optimistic giggle (these, Jean felt guilty for hearing), and he wanted to smack Eren round the face, hoping he would open his eyes to the horrors of the world around him and finally realise how powerless he was against it. Maybe then, when Eren had stopped trying so much, would Jean feel at peace.

If his acceptance of the brutality of life had been recent, then his annoyance at Eren’s inexorable spirit had probably peaked at the same time. Having to play captive with his best friend can’t have helped either. It didn’t particularly matter anyway: he would have been annoyed with anyone who was the cause of him riding through the night to some remote church in the country. Irritation pulsed through his veins, synchronising with the ceaseless _clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop_ of the horse. 

If they did indeed manage to find him, then Eren owed him, he thought. Not that Eren would ever admit it, but maybe he’d accept this one small fact quietly.

When the church in question loomed up on the top of the hill ahead of them, framed by a deathly dawn, Jean remembered vowing that Eren would know that it was him who went after Armin when he broke off from the group, throwing his horse into a determined gallop. He’d also be sure to make it clear to him that his head felt as if it could fall off his shoulders with weariness as he pushed ahead, and that he hated himself for caring what happened to Armin. Armin, like Eren himself, didn’t care about Jean, not really. Same with Mikasa. Of course: Eren was the one with the dedicated friends because he did stupid, reckless things for them; having them act like obsequious disciples in return for his suicidal tendencies which were, at their heart, selfish.

By the time Jean, in his fatigue and over-sized boots, managed to catch up with Armin, they had reached the church. From the other side of the hill, the village under the sunrise to which the road led was obscured, meaning the church stood alone, a temple of secrets and dread. He wasn’t sure if Armin found it as foreboding as he did, because he didn’t say anything, just dismounted into the dewy grass, only allowing his legs to fall in for a split second before he regained his balance. Jean only watched. He didn’t say anything either: not because he didn’t have anything to say, but because the words stuck in his throat, as if he were a titan and his oesophagus were clogged with the bodies of the troops now coming up the hill towards them.

He never could have foretold what would have come after. If he knew, somehow, then he would have stripped the irritation from his body and thrown it into the empty moor, hoping it would disappear into the morning mist if he wished hard enough. If he knew even a hint of what was to come, he would have steeled himself, hung back, or avoided it altogether. However, Jean had accepted the cruelty of the world, and this acceptance brought with it a certain sureness, even arrogance, in situations that seemed normal. So Jean hovered over Armin as he entered the church, smirking when they found it empty.

He hated the way he acted sometimes.

It was strange that there was a secret entrance behind the altar, of course, but when he was with the misfits they called the 104th (or what was left of them), it almost seemed typical that they’d come across something like that. Credit to Eren, he supposed: his life became more exciting after he met him. He often wondered if he’d trade in seeing watching Eren’s ridiculous pixie-eared titan fighting almost unreal gargantuan battles for a life inside the walls. He’d be safer there; but then, wasn’t everyday life so mundane? He was better than that. Plus, he’d already accepted that the world was cruel, and there he was, stupidly following Armin down the hidden steps at the front of the church.

The last thing he heard before Hange shut the cover behind them was a horse whinnying echoing through the church’s barren rafters.

Strange things probably followed Eren around as a result of his lack of regard for the rules of the world. Jean had concluded that they’d found Eren before he saw him, because, of course, they were in an underground hall seemingly fashioned from glowing tree roots. 

He couldn’t have avoided seeing Eren. It wasn’t that he’d tried: what was it to him if he never saw that suicidal idiot again? At least Jean would finally find out how his name was really spelt on his gravestone. Rather, he couldn’t avoid seeing Eren. It was the first time he’d ever heard Mikasa shriek, and the last time he ever wanted to. It was the kind of bloodcurdling shriek that, despite its relative quietness and the size of the hall, managed to break Jean into a million pieces and force him back together again, all in the space of a split second.

He understood. He understood why Mikasa had screamed, he understood why she ignored Historia and Rod, pushing them out of the way as if they were mere pieces of meat. He understood why the corporal didn’t seem to hesitate in unleashing a gun, severing the chains hanging from the ceiling in five shots, before lowering the gun to the chest of the head of the Reiss family. He understood why Armin ignored his own pain when he tripped, continuing up the stairs towards his childhood friend even when there was blood the colour of dying roses trickling out from the gash in his trousers. He understood everything, and his acceptance of the world shattered.

It shattered because he was angry.

And he was angry because, even though he hated him for being so loud and unaccepting of the world, someone had broken Eren Jaeger’s spirit. 

It was horrible. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the almost unrecognisable body draped in Mikasa’s arms. At first, Jean was startled to see how strange the muscles he had developed from using the 3DMG looked on his small, almost pre-pubescent frame; alas, then he noticed how his posture told a more harrowing story than of simple overwork. He seemed lifeless and stiff at the same time, his arms hanging useless at his sides. Jean would later find out that this was because his shoulders were dislocated. Even his hands were bound and chained, like some out of some horrific tale of torture. 

Anger tasted bitter. It was like bile on his tongue, turning poisonous when he caught sight of Rod and Historia from the corner of his eyes. He didn’t care what her justifications were for falling for this. Jean was alone, but he could see torture when it was knelt on a platform twenty feet away from where he was standing.

The worst part served to push him down until he found himself kneeling, clutching feebly at the cold stone beneath him. The worst part was Mikasa carefully taking off that sadistic gag he was wearing; and when Armin took hold of him and embraced him while Mikasa pressed a kiss to his forehead, he noticed neither of them. All he could do was cry, exhausted, leant into Mikasa’s chest, sobs wracking through his body and echoing throughout that hellish yet beautiful hall.

Somewhere in the next few moments, Jean Kirstein would again accept that the world, as it was, would undoubtedly provide him with many things he would wish he hadn’t experienced. He would also accept that no matter how bad he thought titans were, there were things more horrifying than even the face of death incarnate at twenty metres in the air. This was a constant reminder, a suffocating reality, not a revelation: a fact that would keep him awake, night after night, until he could bear the sounds of Eren’s sobs no longer and would ask the hallucination of his dead best friend for salvation. Fifteen was too young for everything. Sixteen was just as bad; but at least, his atonement was that the average sixteen-year-old hadn’t seen what he’d seen.


End file.
